The Last of Us Q&A: Naughty Dog Will “Brainstorm Some Ideas” for a Sequel Once They Recover From Development

May 24, 2013 Written by Jason Dunning

Thanks to a live stream for The Last of Us on the PS Blog, a few more pieces on info for The Last of Us have come to light, with Neil Druckmann, Creative Director, revealing that the game takes place over the course of an entire year.

There was also a Q&A held with Neil, Bruce Straley, Game Director, and Ashley Johnson, who plays Ellie, with the most interesting answers and tidbits placed below:

They first came up with the idea for The Last of Us three and a half years ago

Troy Baker was the best fit for Joel because “he’s really handsome.”

They didn’t decide on Troy Baker as Joel until after he did a scene with Ashley and it seemed natural. Ashley said they “automatically had chemistry.”

They knew as soon as Ashley Johnson walked in that she’d play Ellie.

Bruce Straley considers The Last of Us a franchise (thanks in part to the comics), but he said “we’ll see” when it comes to more games.

The journey for Joel and Ellie “ends with The Last of Us” and Neil said they’ll “brainstorm some ideas” for a possible sequel, after the teams takes a break, to see if there’s something else they want to say with this world. If there isn’t though, Neil said they’ll go onto something else.

Bruce said they always knew from the beginning that The Last of Us would be a PS3 title and they never considered it as next-gen.

They came upon some limitations with the PS3 and had to get creative with how they handled memory and rendering.

“There’s no loading screens once you start the adventure.”

Neil said “we’ll see” when asked about possible campaign DLC.

Multiplayer is “fun to play around the office” and they think they succeeded to retain the same tone, tension, and weight the single player moments have. Still no details on when we’ll actually hear something about the multiplayer though.

The Last of Us releases on the PlayStation 3 June 14th, with the demo inside God of War: Ascension unlocking on May 31st. As for that demo, it was revealed that it’s completely different than the one they showed during the live stream, which took place just after they crash the car in Pittsburgh.

Are you going to be playing the demo next week? Let us know in the comments below.